In records management systems, defensible disposal is an information governance process where content of a regulated entity is systematically deleted with an audit trail that is based on retention policies. The process may include electronically capturing content, applying retention policies to the content, and disposing content according to a retention schedule, while retaining content on litigation hold. Adhering to defensible disposal policies allows an enterprise to demonstrate, for legal purposes, that any action taken to destroy or delete documents (or other records) is performed in good faith.
Traditional records management systems typically classify content and aggregate related content as records. Further, the records may be stored in containers. Each container is assigned a disposition schedule based on retention policies. For instance, consider a container storing contracts maintained by an enterprise. As an example, a disposition schedule could specify that records in the container should be disposed of three years after a contract close date indicated in the record. The records management system, on a periodic basis (e.g., once a day), may perform disposition processes that queries every container for all records to be deleted, based on retention policies. Once the processes determine that records are scheduled to be deleted, the records management system notifies a reviewer, who then approves or rejects the deletion. The records management system disposes the records after receiving a decision from the reviewer.